page_title: History of paleontology
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of paleontology / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Historical plate showing fossils that characterize the “Oak-Tree Clay” (corresponding to the Kimmeridge Clay of modern nomenclature, Kimmeridgian, middle Upper Jurassic) of England. This plate comes from the fundamental biostratigraphical work of the pioneer of modern Geology William Smith. Note that the names of the fossil taxa may have changed since, mainly in a way, that the historical genus concepts subsequently changed over to family or even higher-ranked taxa. For example, the genus “Ammonites” is not even used anymore.&#91;1&#93; The specimen shown in figure&#160;7 has later been referred to the species Pictonia baylei of the family Aulacostephanidae. The genus Ostrea is still in use but its historical concept today corresponds to the family Ostreidae, and many historical species have been assigned to newly erected genera. The oyster shell shown in figure&#160;6 today is referred to as Liostrea delta or Deltoideum delta. The „Terebratula“ in figure&#160;9 is probably the rhynchonellid brachiopod which today is referred to as Torquirhynchia inconstans (originally formally named „Terebratula inconstans“ by Sowerby, 1821). Deutsch: Historische Bildtafel mit Abbildungen von Fossilien, die den „Oak-Tree Clay“ (heute als Kimmeridge Clay bezeichnet und dem Kimmeridgium, d.h. dem mittleren Oberjura, zugeordnet) von England kennzeichnen. Diese Bildtafel entstammt der fundamentalen biostratigraphischen Arbeit des Pioniers der modernen Geologie William Smith. Man beachte, dass die Namen der Fossiltaxa sich seither wahrscheinlich geändert haben, hauptsächlich derart, dass historische Gattungskozepte später oft auf Familien oder noch höherrangige Taxa übergingen. Beispielsweise wird die Gattung „Ammonites“ heute nicht einmal mehr benutzt.&#91;1&#93; Der in Abbildung&#160;7 gezeigte Ammonit wurde nachfolgend der Spezies Pictonia baylei aus der Familie Aulacostephanidae zugewiesen. Die Gattung Ostrea wird noch benutzt, aber ihr historisches Konzept entspricht heute der Familie Ostreidae und viele historische Arten sind neu errichteten Gattungen zugeordnet worden. Die in Abbildung&#160;6 dargestellte Austernschale wird heute als Liostrea delta oder Deltoideum delta bezeichnet. Die „Terebratula“ in Abbildung&#160;9 ist wahrscheinlich ein rhynchonellider Brachiopode, der heute Torquirhynchia inconstans genannt wird (ursprünglich formell benannt als „Terebratula inconstans“ von Sowerby, 1821). ↑ a b Francis Hemming, W. J. Arkell (1954): Opinion 305: Suppression, under the Plenary Powers, of the generic name Ammonites Bruguiere, 1789, and addition to the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology of the generic name Arietites Waagen, 1869 (Class Cephalopoda, Order Ammonoidea). Opinions and declarations rendered by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 8(22):297–311 (archive.org)
context_page_description: The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past, paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the history of Earth itself.
  In ancient times, Xenophanes, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, and Strabo wrote about fossils of marine organisms, indicating that land was once under water. The ancient Chinese considered them to be dragon bones and documented them as such. During the Middle Ages, fossils were discussed by Persian naturalist Ibn Sina in The Book of Healing, which proposed a theory of petrifying fluids that Albert of Saxony would elaborate on in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo would propose a theory of climate change based on evidence from petrified bamboo.
  In early modern Europe, the systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason.
context_section_description: In his 1778 work Epochs of Nature Georges Buffon referred to fossils, in particular the discovery of fossils of tropical species such as elephants and rhinoceros in northern Europe, as evidence for the theory that the earth had started out much warmer than it currently was and had been gradually cooling.
  In 1796 Georges Cuvier presented a paper on living and fossil elephants comparing skeletal remains of Indian and African elephants to fossils of mammoths and of an animal he would later name mastodon utilizing comparative anatomy. He established for the first time that Indian and African elephants were different species, and that mammoths differed from both and must be extinct. He further concluded that the mastodon was another extinct species that also differed from Indian or African elephants, more so than mammoths. Cuvier made another powerful demonstration of the power of comparative anatomy in paleontology when he presented a second paper in 1796 on a large fossil skeleton from Paraguay, which he named Megatherium and identified as a giant sloth by comparing its skull to those of two living species of tree sloth. Cuvier's ground-breaking work in paleontology and comparative anatomy led to the widespread acceptance of extinction. It also led Cuvier to advocate the geological theory of catastrophism to explain the succession of organisms revealed by the fossil record. He also pointed out that since mammoths and woolly rhinoceros were not the same species as the elephants and rhinoceros currently living in the tropics, their fossils could not be used as evidence for a cooling earth.
  In a pioneering application of stratigraphy, William Smith, a surveyor and mining engineer, made extensive use of fossils to help correlate rock strata in different locations.   He created the first geological map of England during the late 1790s and early 19th century. He established the principle of faunal succession, the idea that each strata of sedimentary rock would contain particular types of fossils, and that these would succeed one another in a predictable way even in widely separated geologic formations. At the same time, Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, an instructor at the Paris school of mine engineering, used similar methods in an influential study of the geology of the region around Paris.
caption: Illustration from William Smith's Strata by Organized Fossils (1817)
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